Xbox

Xbox anticipates changes beyond Project Helix

by

Yesterday Nintendo closed non-E3. The video game fair as we knew it died a few years agobut its spirit lives on in the form of conferences that take place in the first half of June and in which companies show the news that will arrive on their platforms over the coming months. PlayStation, the aforementioned Nintendo, the Summer Game Fest or the PC Game Show have been some of them, but If there is one that is attracting attention, it is Xbox. And it turns out that he is not talking about his games (many old acquaintances that are now simply dated), but rather because of the change in strategy after the arrival of Asha Sharma as new CEO from Microsoft’s video game division. Because where before there were own games that would even come out for PlayStation, now there are a return to console exclusives. And within those consoles is a Project Helix which, supposedly, will be the new Microsoft machine and that it will not be easy. To the point that they are rethinking what Project Helix should be, how much it should cost or if we are prepared for such expensive consoles. And Asha Sharma adds one more question: a business model we would never have expected and that could start this year. We are going little by little because there is a lot to unpack. From the “can Xbox be fixed?” to a Project Helix that arrives at the worst possible time After a conference like the one we saw on Sunday, it is logical that questions will arise. The entire conversation is revolving around the issue of the return to exclusives, implying that a Microsoft that finds it difficult to maintain stock of its own consoles is abandoning a fleet of Sony consoles that exceeds, by several tens of millions of units, the installed Xbox. Microsoft games on PS5 They operate on a commercial levelwith notable examples such as ‘Forza Horizon 5‘and, above all, ‘Sea of ​​Thieves‘. But Sharma wants Xbox to become number one in gaming and believes that that path passes through the return of the exclusives. It is a somewhat strange maneuver because those first chosen will be ‘Gears of War E-Day‘ (which we later learned was planned for PS5 until a few days ago) and ‘Clockwork Revolution‘. Others like ‘Halo: Campaign Evolved‘for this July 28 or future ones’State of Decay 3‘, ‘Fables‘ and ‘Senua‘yes they will see the light on the Sony console. If nothing changes again, of course. Matt Booty, head of the Xbox games division, warned at the conference that each case will be reviewed individually, implying that they are also not very clear about which games will reach other consoles and which will not. “Do you think Xbox can be fixed?” – Asha Sharma asked Matthew Ball But, in any case and beyond the video games themselves, there is something else floating in the air. We know that Xbox is working on its new console, the aforementioned Helix. It will be a kind of hybrid between console and PC, something that makes a lot of sense if we take into account Microsoft’s business and, above all, that Steam is preparing exactly the same thing with its Steam Machine. A few weeks ago, Asha Sharma commented that the hardware existed and they are closing the details to be able to send the development kits (necessary to start developing the games) to the video game studios at the beginning of next year. He also ‘threatened’ the price, pointing out that Project Helix will not be a cheap machine because the situation with the components is what it is. Hardware that will have a good amount of memory and storage will be very, very expensive. We are seeing it on mobilesrouters and even on the Raspberry Pibut what has scared many of us is the relaunch of a Steam Machine with a premium of almost 300 euros. After being out of stock for months due to out-of-stock due to the supply of components, the machine returned with several hundred euros extra price. This situation did not bode well either for a Steam Machine that, supposedly, will arrive this summer… or for a PS6 and Project Helix that we should see sometime in 2027. Given all the necessary context, let’s go with Matthew Ball. Ball is Xbox’s new head of strategy. He responds to a Sharma who asked him one thing before signing him: Can Xbox be fixed? Ball believes so, rewarding players who have stayed on Xbox with this return of exclusives as a way to “validate the historical investment” of those players. It must be remembered that someone who buys a ‘Forza Horizon 6‘on PS5 he is also an Xbox player, for example, but oh well. About Helix, Ball points out in a interview that it would not make sense for the company to get out of the hardware business and that they are making this return to exclusives, precisely, to strengthen their platform. Now, it also supports what Sharma already said: the next Xbox will arrive in a context in which the AI ​​boom has skyrocketed the cost of components. “I think we will start to see radically different business models that we would never have expected to come into being later this year” – Asha Sharma In addition to pointing out that they cannot produce consoles at the same rate as they are demanded (hence the stock outage in many markets, with Xbox Series X showing a premium because they are not units that Xbox sells directly), points out something interesting: They are fighting to make the console design not be compromised by the situation, but at the same time trying to make it affordable in a context of high costs that are expected to continue for at least the next two and a half years. That is to say: they need to launch a new machine, but one that is not as expensive as the original … Read more

Xbox Project Helix, information

by

Several years have passed since Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S They landed in living rooms around the world, and Microsoft is beginning to show the cards for what comes next. Project Helix is the code name for the next generation of Xbox, a console that, judging by how little (and how much) is already known about it, is not going to be too similar to what the company has offered us so far. Under these lines we bring together everything we know about the next generation of Xbox to date. What is Project Helix? Project Helix is the official codename for the next-generation Xbox console. Microsoft confirmed it publicly in March 2026, when Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xboxwho came to office after the Phil Spencer’s retirement At the end of February, he announced it through his X account. According to counted Sharma at the time, the console “will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.” As is common in the industry, this is not a definitive brand name. As happened with Project Scarlett and Lockhart, which eventually became Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S respectively, Project Helix will receive another name when Xbox confirms it. Until then, this is how we will refer to the device. What has been clear from the beginning is that Microsoft has ambitions that go well beyond a simple generational update. According to Jason Ronaldvice president of Xbox’s next-generation division, the team has been working hard on the hardware for some time and at GDC 2026 in March confirmed that they are “in full development” of the console. What type of console is it? This is perhaps the most striking feature of Project Helix, and the one that has generated the most stir in the industry. Unlike its predecessors, the console will not only run Xbox games, but It will also be able to run PC titles. And supposedly not only from the Microsoft store, but also from other digital platforms such as Steam or GOG natively. Microsoft has been moving towards the idea that “everything is an Xbox” for some time, erasing the boundaries between console and PC. Project Helix would be the most ambitious materialization of that philosophy. Ronald himself counted already at GDC that “the days when people defined themselves as console, PC or mobile gamers really don’t exist anymore.” Xbox Series X For developers, Microsoft is preparing a unified development kit (GDK) that will allow them to release a single version of a game and reach both console and PC users, something that would considerably reduce the effort of studios to adapt their games to multiple platforms. According to Wccftechthe user interface will be built around an evolved version of the Xbox Full Screen Experience, similar to what already exists on laptops ASUS ROG Xbox Ally. In addition, in April 2026, the so-called “Xbox Mode” began to be deployed in Windows 11, a full-screen, controller-optimized experience that acts as a preview of the Project Helix environment. It is only available on Windows 11 and serves both to mature the ecosystem and to familiarize PC players with what is to come. What are its technical specifications? Microsoft and AMD have been deliberately brief with specific numbers, preferring to talk about design philosophy rather than TFLOPS. But what has been officially confirmed, combined with what internal sources have revealed, already offers a fairly clear profile of the hardware. What is officially confirmed: AMD Custom SoC: Project Helix will be built on a custom chip designed jointly by Microsoft and AMD. AMD Senior Vice President Jack Huynh confirmed which uses the RDNA 5 GPU architecture and is manufactured in TSMC’s 3 nanometer process, which represents a huge leap in efficiency compared to the 7 nm of the Xbox Series X. New generation of DirectX and FSR Diamond: The console is co-designed for the next generation of DirectX. AMD has also confirmed that Project Helix will incorporate FSR Diamond, its new scaling and frame generation platform, which integrates a dedicated NPU for multi-frame generation, neural texture compression and neural rendering. dedicated NPU: The console includes a Neural Processing Unit integrated directly into the SoC, independent of the GPU and CPU, to handle all artificial intelligence-driven rendering tasks. Next level ray tracing:Microsoft has described Project Helix’s ray tracing performance as “an order of magnitude jump” over the current generation. This is supported in part by the new RDNA 5 architectures, which include so-called “Radiance Cores”, a specific hardware block for ray tracing, and “Neural Arrays”, a new approach to grouping GPU computing units as a unified artificial intelligence engine. What the leaks point out: Known leakers such as Moore’s Law Is Dead and KeplerL2 have stated on several occasions that the chip is internally called “Magnus” and would have: CPU: Hybrid design with up to 11 cores, with up to 3 high-performance Zen 6 cores and up to 8 efficiency Zen 6c cores. The frequencies of the performance cores are estimated to be in the range of 5.5-6 GHz. This would represent a huge generational leap over the Xbox Series X’s Zen 2 cores. GPU: 68 RDNA 5 compute units. Although only a 30% increase in units over the 52 Series Memory: GDDR7, according to industry analysts. According to Wccftech, if these leaks are correct, Project Helix could offer between 5 and 6 times the rasterization performance of Xbox Seriesand up to 20 times in ray tracing. However, we have no choice but to wait for official information to corroborate these data. When is Project Helix coming? There is no official date. What Microsoft has confirmed in the latest GDC is that the development units in the alpha phase will begin to arrive at the studios from 2027. From there, the calendar is speculative. The launch window that industry sources most point to is end of 2027although some analysts do not rule out 2028 either. In part, this will depend on when exactly the development kits arrive … Read more

Microsoft put the head of its AI department in charge of Xbox. Now it’s dismantling all of Xbox’s AI

by

Asha Sharman is the new CEO of Xbox and has arrived with a mission: to blow up Xbox. At least, that is what he is proposing in the first three months of his mandate in which he took the reins of the company in one of the worst moments in its history, with a diffuse identity and with the responsibility of filling the shoes of a Phil Spencer who had been with the company for 40 years. The most curious thing is that Sharma came from presiding over CoreAI, one of Microsoft’s most important AI divisions, and is doing the opposite of what many of us expected. Dismantle AI from within. Distrust. The Xbox brand is not going through its best moment. Since the disastrous E3 in 2013 where the Xbox boss said that if someone didn’t want an always-connected console (Xbox One) they could stick with their old Xbox 360, things have gone downhill. That someone was a Don Mattrick who was replaced by Phil Spencer and with whom things began to change. Game Pass, studio purchases to feed the ecosystem and strategy changes such as launching games on PC and PlayStation. The accounts seemed to come out in services, but not in hardware or games. After all this time, Phil retired and a totally different profile arrived: that of Asha Sharman. The directive I wasn’t a gamer like Phil, he also had no gaming experience. He came from leading CoreAI, a Microsoft team focused on accelerating the development of AI software for internal and external customers to build and run AI applications and agents. Out with the AI. When it was announced that she would be in charge of replacing Phil, in the midst of the ‘Microslop’ meme, many of us feared the worst for the division. Even one of the fathers of Xbox He pointed out that Sharma was going to bury Xbox. However, through Twitter, the CEO has just launched a release quite interesting: “Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection to the community, and address friction for both players and developers.” It would seem like just another message, that typical ‘CEO language’ that so many managers use, but it has gone one step further by committing to something interesting: “Today we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox while bringing in new voices to help us move forward. This balance is important as we get the business back on track. As part of this change, we will begin removing features that do not align with our intentions and plans for the future. “We will begin scaling back Copilot on mobile devices and will stop development of Copilot on consoles.” CoreAI Avalanche. This implies a shift in the strategy of a Microsoft that, like others like Meta, they had become an AI company. They have pushed Copilot to its limits, putting it on capon even on televisions thanks to commercial agreements or by renaming its office suite so that, now, its most important services were Copilot and, therefore, artificial intelligence. These statements, therefore, represent an interesting change, as interesting as seeing who are those who now manage Xbox. Sharma talks about “new voices” and what contrasts with this plan to dismantle Copilot in some of the products is that many of them come from… CoreAI. As they point our colleagues from 3DJuegos, The Verge raises a list of four very important members of that AI division who, now, come to Xbox to work with Sharma when defining the future strategy and the new machine: Project Helix. Return to fan. It is not Sharma’s only turn in this short period at the helm of Xbox. From the “everything is an Xbox” campaign, tremendously controversial because if everything is an Xbox, nothing is, we move on to a “we are xbox“, a return to those origins in which an Xbox is an Xbox, and that’s it. Well, also the PC, which is receiving its ‘Xbox mode‘ to improve the video game experience. There is rumors that they are considering returning to exclusives (PC and Xbox) abandoning launches on platforms such as PlayStation 5 and They have lowered the price of Game Pass Ultimatethat it was shot a few months ago. Of course, although they lowered the price, they also left ‘Call of Duty’ out of the subscription, so that reduction is misleading. I want to believe. Now, you have to be careful with all this. Although they are already taking some actions (that “reduction” of Game Pass or stopping the development of Copilot on Xbox), the return to exclusives and the roots of Xbox are issues that remain to be seen. Until they start taking more forceful action, we won’t be able to assess how far Sharma has gone to do things differently. Furthermore, and it is not to look for spins on Sharma’s statements, the board has pointed out that they stop Copilot on consoles. And that word, “consoles,” is very important because we don’t know what Project Helix will be. Your new machine definitely cannot be classified as a console because the machine itself Microsoft is positioning it as a PCone in which the crisis of components will impact strongly both in availability and price and it remains to be seen if they miss that opportunity to bring AI to the living rooms. But well, it is evident that the new CEO has arrived at Xbox wanting to wage war and we can think “ok, but above it is someone with more power: Satya Nadella.” And yes, Nadella has been one of the great drivers of converting Microsoft into an AI company, but just yesterday the company’s CEO sent a powerful message: clean Windows of so much garbage to win back the fans. Only time will tell, but it is evident that Microsoft’s image is not going through its best moment. In Xataka | France wants to “become independent” from Windows and embrace Linux: Extremadura has a lesson to transmit

The biggest find in twelve years of GTA archeology came from an Edinburgh flea market and a used Xbox 360

by

It’s fascinating when we discover details years (even decades) after a game’s release that hadn’t come to light before. Secret levels in classics that everyone had examined from cover to cover, unrevealed meanings, unsolved puzzles… and sometimes, versions of the games that should never have seen the light of day and that give clues about the ideas that were considered in the development process. The latest case in that sense: ‘GTA IV’. What has happened? Last weekend, a user of GTAForums known as janmatant He paid £5 at a flea market in Edinburgh for an Xbox 360 in not very good condition. At home he discovered that the console was running Xshell, the operating system for Microsoft development kits. The 120 GB hard drive contained a single game: a beta version of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ dated November 2007, several months before its commercial release. The treasures he found were poured into the thread GTA IV Beta Huntwho has been tracking unreleased content from the game since 2014 (and which has generated 14 new pages of comments since posting janmatant). GTA IV on the trail. That the discovery occurred in Edinburgh is not at all coincidental. Rockstar North has been based in the capital since it was DMA Design, in 1987, and that is why the console ended up in the hands of a scrap dealer, a process that clearly should not have happened. Development kits are proprietary hardware that Microsoft distributes exclusively to studios (and in those days also to the press) to run games in conditions close to the final hardware. In theory, at the end of a project cycle, those units are returned or destroyed, but this was not the case. 118 gigabytes of Liberty City. After confirming by the serial number that the devkit was authentic, janmatant uploaded the content to the Internet Archive under the title “Great Stealing of Vehicles four XDK”. The 118 GB file is it executable on a real Xbox 360 with debugging tools, although a fully playable version is not yet ready. The most immediate find was the Liberty City ferries. The barges appear in the game’s first trailer and in some cutscenes, but in the final game they are just a set piece. The realistic ‘GTA IV’ opted for a world focused on cars and taxis and in its day, Obbe Vermeij, former technical director of Rockstar North, counted that the shuttles were removed late in development, with models already finished. Zombie mode. There had always been rumors about a zombie mode for which we had never had solid evidence. Herein build We find hospital beds with direct references to zombies, early models of infected characters and several animations associated with this variant. The Cutting Room Floorthe wiki dedicated to documenting cut content in video games, had already listed the project as “Z: Resurrection” based on code fragments found in the final version, but without visual material to support it. A former Rockstar developer It has taken away some of the epicness of the matter: According to him, zombie mode was simply an “experiment” that artists and programmers played to develop in parallel, not a formal production line. That doesn’t mean the discovery is minor, but rather that the creative leeway within Rockstar North in 2007 allowed a team to test out survival horror mechanics during development. Other divergences. The build includes other substantial differences from the final game. The silenced pistol is in this version’s arsenal, along with other unfinished weapons and a notable number of incomplete animations and unreplaced audio markers, as is the case with any half-developed game. The models of some NPCs are different from the final ones, and the character of Michelle, the FIB informant who appears as Niko Bellic’s early romantic interest, has a look here that forum users describe as strangely disturbing. What may be most surprising to any fan of the game is that about half of the radio stations sound completely different. ‘GTA IV’ has one of the most elaborate soundtracks in the saga, with dozens of real music licenses distributed on thematic stations. That half of that content changed between November 2007 and the April 2008 release says a lot about the licensing negotiation process in the final phases of development. What does Rockstar do? After everything that happened, Rockstar Games and Take-Two have not issued public statements. Although companies have a reputation for relentlessly pursuing leaks, the author of this leak purchased the console legally. In any case, he has put the devkit up for sale on eBay for £800. It’s not too much for material of such magnitude, but the truth is that, once on the Internet, access to these secrets is universal. In Xataka | The best video games of 2026 and the most interesting ones to come

Microsoft killed the traditional Xbox by saying that everything was an Xbox. Now he wants to resurrect it with Project Helix

by

Microsoft has quietly withdrawn its “This is an Xbox” campaign, the initiative with which it had spent 16 months trying to convince the world that any device (television, mobile phone, tablet) It was technically an Xbox.. The deletion coincides with the replacement at the top managementthe debut of Project Helix at GDC and a market paradox: Sony and Microsoft have become, at the same time, the main defenders of the concept “a console is a console.” The campaign. The series of ‘This is an Xbox’ ads were launched under the presidency of Sarah Bond and functioned as the great manifesto of the post-hardware era of Microsoft Gaming. Now it has disappeared without an official statement: the blog entry that opened it on Xbox Wire gives error 404and searching for the term in the official Xbox news repository only returns one article about ROG Xbox Ally. The files indicate that the page was still accessible on March 1, 2026. What was it about? The idea behind “This is an Xbox” was, in theory, reasonable: expand the ecosystem beyond its own hardware, bet on the streaming in the cloud as a gateway and normalize that playing Xbox did not require purchasing an Xbox console. The problem is that the argument, taken to its extreme, destroyed the reason for the hardware. The campaign generated more confusion than interest, with fans wondering why they would buy an Xbox if the titles were available on any platform. The rejection. Apparentlythe initiative was not well received internally, and the company made some strategic lurches. For example, the announcement of an Xbox mobile store in summer 2024 never materialized. A few months later, with the arrival of Asha Sharma as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming and the departure of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, the campaign has ended up being withdrawn. The phrase with which Sharma summed up this new change of direction speaks for itself: “The plan is the plan until it isn’t“. More from Helix. The same day that the 404 of “This is an Xbox” was discovered, Microsoft had a presence at GDC 2026 with the Developer Summit dedicated to Project Helix. Jason Ronald, vice president of Next Generation at Xbox, presented the technical details of the upcoming hardware: a console powered by a custom AMD SoC, co-designed for next-generation DirectX and FSR technology, and which the company describes as “an order of magnitude leap” in gaming performance. ray tracing: pscaling Next Generation ML, ML Multi-Frame Generation and Ray Regeneration for games with path tracing The technical details that AMD provided completed the picture: the custom chip is built on RDNA 5 architecture and TSMC’s 3nm process, and incorporates a dedicated NPU that will power all advanced rendering capabilities, including FSR Diamond. Developer alpha kits will begin shipping in 2027, and the company is committed to maintaining compatibility with games from four generations of Xbox. Not everything is perfect. The complicating point in the “return to consoles” story is that Microsoft told the developers at GDC that “build for PC” is the correct approach going forward, suggesting that Project Helix is, at heart, a PC disguised as a console. That is, it is closer to the ambitious project of Valve with its Steam Machine that of the Sony gives up making more PC games. In addition, Xbox Mode will arrive on Windows 11 in April, bringing the console experience directly to the desktop PC, and the Play Anywhere catalog already exceeds 1,500 titles. The Sony thing. It is commented that Sony is returning to the old strategy of exclusives as a hardware sales lever after the PC ports did not work as expected. Part of the problem was one of timing: games arrived on PC months or years after the console launch, making it difficult to build a stable audience on the platform. There is Steam data very significant: ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered’, for example, reached a peak of just 66,000 simultaneous players, a figure that did not justify the continued investment in big-budget game ports. Sony and Microsoft, two companies that took opposite paths in the last generation (one opening up to the PC, the other trying to dissolve the very idea of ​​the console), have simultaneously reached the same conclusion. A console is a console, and hardware has to have value. In Xataka | “We will not flood our ecosystem with soulless AI garbage.” We already know what Asha Sharma wants to do as CEO of Microsoft Gaming

The best TVs to play and get the most out of your PS5 or Xbox Series

by

You buy a television thinking you’ve hit the nail on the head and suddenly your friend tells you that it’s not good for gaming. That if your screen offers 60 Hz, that if it does not have HDMI 2.1, that the future is in the cloud and the television does not support it… But what is all this? What TV should I buy to have a good experience with PlayStation and Xbox consoles? We’re going to get technical, but we’re going to explain in detail what each thing is so that now you can hit the nail on the head with your purchase. What is necessary to squeeze out the features of the consoles 4K, Full HD or HD resolution. The most important thing when choosing a TV, as long as we do so to take advantage of the features of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Xis that its screen offers 4K resolution. This should not be a problem if we choose a television larger than 40 inches, since this is normally the resolution that has become the standard for a few years. Although they are gradually disappearing, there are televisions below that diagonal, especially less than 30 inches, that offer Full HD resolution or, where appropriate, HD. In this case, we recommend that beyond 40 inches it be 4K to have better visual quality, so as not to notice the pixels as much. To make everything clearer, both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X offer: Resolution up to 4K. Support for a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1 support. Hertz and the relationship with fps. The second most important thing is that the television is capable of offering a refresh rate of at least 120 Hz. But be careful, not all video games offer a 4K/120 Hz ratio, so you have to pay attention here. In many cases, games allow us to choose various quality/performance modes, which is usually 4K/30 fps or Full HD/120 Hz. But… am I confusing hertz (Hz) with Frames per Second (FPS, frames per second)? It is not the same, but it is closely related. Stay with this: if the console offers 120 fps, but the TV only has 60 Hz, we will only take advantage of the fluidity of 60 fps. On the other hand, if the television offers a rate greater than 120 Hz, we will take advantage of 120 fps. While fps is the amount of images that the console can generate, Hz is the frequency with which the TV updates the image. For this reason, they are different concepts, but they are closely related. HDMI 2.1 or HDMI 2.1b. When buying a television, we should pay attention to the version of its HDMI ports. The consoles are compatible with HDMI 2.1, so the ideal is that we choose this same version if we are looking for the best experience. Now, you may come across a similar version called HDMI 2.1b. It is more designed for very large televisions or screens, such as those in shopping centers, since they offer compatibility with a higher resolution. Keep these differences: HDMI 2.1: supports 8K at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1b: Supports 8K at 60 Hz, 4K at 120 Hz and 10K at 120 Hz. There are more differences, but in practice they are not usually taken advantage of, at least on consoles. Do not buy a television prioritizing this HDMI 2.1b standard, especially if it is more expensive. The important thing here is that it at least has HDMI 2.1 and not HDMI 2.0, which in the latter case offers a lower resolution/hertz ratio, so you would not take advantage of the features of the consoles. HDMI 2.1 at 60Hz. Although the ideal is that we opt for a television that offers 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz and that has HDMI 2.1 ports, this is not always the case. My example: I have a TV with HDMI 2.1 and a 4K display, but its refresh rate is 60 Hz. I don’t get the most out of my PS5, so I wouldn’t recommend this TV for gaming. Depending on the prices we see on televisions, it is advisable to spend a little more to have a good resolution/hertz/HDMI 2.1 ratio. Latency or input lag. Although this is something that is usually looked at more closely with monitors, here it is advisable that we take a look at the specifications of the televisions to know what the response time is. In some cases, brands may not mention it, but if they do, at least this latency is less than 5 ms. In this way, when you press a button on the console controller, the video game character will move practically instantly. The higher the latency, the more we will notice the “delay” between pressing the button and the character moving. As a summary, in this table we leave the essentials with a brief explanation of what each thing is: The best option What is it for? Resolution 4K So that the images are of higher quality and the pixels are not noticeable. Hertz 120Hz So that the images look more fluid. HDMI HDMI 2.1 So that televisions can offer higher resolution at a high refresh rate. Latency Less than 5 ms So that there is not too much delay between pressing the button and the action being displayed on the screen. The functions and technologies that are a good addition We have already talked about the essentials, now we are going to give way to those functions or technologies that only add. Variable Refresh Rate. The VRR It is a technology that allows us to adapt the refresh rate of a television or monitor to the fps rate of the game we are running. This ensures a smoother experience. But it does not do it alone, but through two technologies: AMD FreeSync via software. Nvidia G-Sync via hardware or Nvidia G-Sync … Read more

We have been experiencing a great war between the Xbox and the PlayStation for 25 years. And that’s wonderful: Crossover 1×38

by

The clear things and the thick chocolate: I’m from Xbox. I have been almost always, although my first real console was the original PlayStation. Then, for various reasons, I decided to try the original Xbox and loved it, and have ended up owning all of its successors. But that doesn’t stop me from knowing that Spain is a country of Play. I respect and accept it, but what I also value is that this “console war” continues to be so active, because that competition not only allows us some fun and laughter with friends – “Do you really have an Xbox!?!?” – but above all because it has allowed both evolve amazingly. And precisely that war between the Xbox and the PlayStation we talk about in this installment of Crossover, in which both Jose and I We talk about our experiences and the history of these platforms accompanied, of course, by Jaume, who moderates and as always asks the right questions. Thus, we review the birth of the first PlayStation and Xbox and how that completely changed a market that previously seemed dominated by Sega and Nintendo. The latter has never directly entered into competition with Sony and Microsoft, and has chosen a different path and in which it has certainly done extraordinarily well. But what is clear is that the evolution of the Xbox and the PlayStation marked us all and in that review we talk about all those decisions, how each of the generations fared and what the future may hold for us. The final question, “Who won the console war?”may have a valid answer for the current moment, but the best of all is that we are facing platforms that are absolutely alive and that are preparing the most interesting news in the short term. Not only of them, of course, also with promising projects like the Steam Machine. Meanwhile, whether you are from Xbox or Play, we have a single message. Long live video games. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | There is brutal competition for our attention. And there is someone losing that battle in a bloody way: the consoles

Three high-end mobile phones at knockdown prices, the Asus Xbox is now on sale and more, Bargain Hunting before Christmas

by

There is less than a week left until Christmas arrives and many stores have launched numerous campaigns and offers focused on this holiday. In the new Bargain Hunting of the week we are going to review the best deals on mobile phones, consoles, headphones and more that we have seen all week and that, of course, are still available. Asus Rog Xbox Ally by 499 eurosthe consolidated PC of the two brands is now available on sale. Google Pixel 10 by 764.15 eurosa very reasonable price for one of the two best Google phones. AirPods 4 by 149 eurosthe same (official) price as headphones without noise cancellation. nintendo switch 2 by 469 eurosthe console pack that includes the Super Mario video game. Ring Indoor Camera 2 by 24.99 eurosAmazon’s indoor surveillance camera at half price. Asus Rog Xbox Ally Last October the Asus Rog Xbox Ally It arrived in stores in style considering that we are talking about a very interesting collaboration in order to play video games on a consolidated PC. By 499 euros (before 599 euros), it is a fairly complete device: processor Ryzen Z2 from AMD, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and IPS anti-glare screen 7 inches with 120 Hz refresh rate. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 If there are some mobile phones that have received a huge number of offers in recent weeks, they are those from Google. MediaMarkt right now has them with a double of discounts through a direct discount and the coupon “MM15GOOGLEPIXEL“, which must be entered before processing the purchase. The Google Pixel 10 Pro is the one that has the best quality-price ratio at the cost 764.15 euros instead of 1,079 euros. However, the rest of the mobile phones have also received very good discounts. If you want to take a look at them, these are their prices: Google Pixel 10 Pro (128GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links AirPods 4 If you are looking for good Bluetooth headphones, especially TWS, be careful because the AirPods 4 have fallen to 149 euros (before 199 euros) at PcComponentes. We are talking about the same price – in this official case – as the same headphones without noise cancellation. This model sold by PcComponentes does comes with active noise cancellationin addition to a good battery and spatial audio and conversation detection. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 Most of the offers that the nintendo switch 2 They have landed directly on AliExpress with Asian and some Spanish versions. Other stores like Amazon have also been lowering the price and right now you find one of the best: the Nintendo Switch 2 along with ‘Mario Kart World’ stays for 469 euros (previously 509 euros), the same price (again official) that the console had without a game when it was launched. And we talk about Nintendo’s most expensive video game. Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Ring Indoor Camera 2 If you are traveling during Christmas or any time afterward, it is good to have a good surveillance camera. The Ring Indoor Camera 2 Right now it is half price on Amazon, since it has dropped to 24.99 euros (before 49.99 euros). It is an indoor camera that has two-way communication, is compatible with Alexa, offers HD resolution and can be placed on the stand or on a wall. Ring Indoor Camera 2nd Gen The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Asus, Google, Apple, Nintendo, Amazon In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2025), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best wireless headphones. Which one to buy and 21 models from 15 euros to 470 euros

This console that no one knows about and is full of strange games with motion control has sold more than Xbox

by

The toy that no one saw coming ended up becoming the unexpected phenomenon of Black Friday 2025. At the end of November and facing the Christmas campaign, a practically unknown console surpassed Xbox in sales and was positioned as the third best-selling hardware in the country, only behind PlayStation 5 and nintendo switch 2. What is it. Is called Nex Playgrounda motion-controlled gaming console made by a Silicon Valley startup that, until recently, was developing artificial intelligence applications to extract basketball scoring statistics. The product didn’t even appear on the industry’s radars until the data analysis firm Circana revealedafter studying console sales figures in recent weeks, which had accumulated 14% of total hardware sales during the most competitive period of the American commercial year. How it works. Its interior houses an 8-core ARM processor, 64 GB of storage and a wide-angle camera that constitutes the heart of the system. The tracking technology detects 18 points on the human body in real time using artificial intelligence algorithms that They process everything locallywithout sending data to the cloud. Some critics they have praised its design and motion tracking capabilities, but questioned the limited library of games and the subscription pricing scheme under which it operates. How much does it cost. Its entry price is $249, and includes five pre-installed games, such as ‘Fruit Ninja’. He full access to the catalog requires purchasing the Play Pass, at $89 annually or $49 quarterly. Still, the total cost of $338 would still be significantly below traditional consoles. The console deliberately aims at an audience other than the gamer traditional: families with young children looking for physical activity disguised as digital entertainment. The sales curve. PlayStation 5 led the market last Black Friday and surrounding dates, with a 47% market share. Switch 2 scored 24%, relegating Xbox to fourth position with less than 14% remaining, according to official data from Circana Retail Tracking Service. Nex’s sales trajectory draws a curve that defies any algorithmic prediction: in 2022, the company barely shipped 5,000 units of its console. The following year, that figure multiplied by thirty to reach 150,000 units. By 2024, the projection points to 600,000 systems sold. The evolution of Nex. The most radical transformation of Nex, the company behind Nex Playground, was not only technological, but also identity-based. The company was born in 2017, founded by a group of former Apple, Google and Facebook engineers led by David Lee. Its first app, ‘HomeCourt’, from July 2018, featured cutting-edge technology applied to a very specific market: basketball players, amateur or not, who wanted to analyze performance metrics. In July 2019 they signed a shareholding with NBA and they started to grow receive recognition. The pandemic and the closure of gyms revealed a fact that had gone unnoticed: people I downloaded the app to access minigames They were practically hidden. In 2021, Nex launched ‘Active Arcade’, a free app with 13 body movement mini-games, and they got more downloads in their first month than ‘HomeCourt’ in its entire history. In December 2023, they launched this Nex Playground, which physically materialized everything they had learned up to that point, seeking a family audience more than expert athletes. Agreements have been signed with brands such as Bluey, Peppa Pig, Barbie and the Ninja Turtles, and project more than $150 million in sales this year. In Xataka | Microsoft is killing Xbox for Excel

Xbox controllers

by

The filtration of the peace agreement of 28 points drawn up by the United States with Russian input acted as a strategic jolt to Europe. For the first time since the end of World War II, European capitals contemplated the possibility of a settlement that would not only weaken Ukraine, but directly erode the foundations of their own security architecture. Thus a race has begun: that of securing its borders. The turn that woke up Europe. I was counting this morning the financial times that the document, right now in full discussionwas perceived in Europe as a covert capitulation to Moscow’s interests, one proposed limits on the size of the Ukrainian army, permanent vetoes on Ukraine’s entry into NATO, and even formulas that turned Washington into a neutral arbiter between Russia and the Atlantic Alliance, a turn that many on the old continent considered unacceptable. The fact that the draft was negotiated without participation of any Member State of the EU or NATO accentuated the feeling of vulnerability and marked a psychological limit: if peace is signed behind closed doors and without Europe, the consequences will fall precisely on Europe. Raising the tone. Hence, leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen or Friedrich Merz they will talk of “moment of destiny”, while Warsaw warned that no agreement could allow Russia to shape continental security as it wishes. The immediate result was a coordinated reaction: emergency video conferences, parallel negotiations in Geneva and an accelerated attempt to reinstate Europe at the center of the decisions that define its future. Political rearmament. European alarm is not limited to the fate of Ukraine. Covers the entire legal frameworkmilitary and diplomatic that supports continental stability. The proposal of ban forever Ukraine’s entry into NATO meant accepting a de facto veto right for Moscow over the Alliance, something that European diplomats consider more dangerous than any territorial setback. Similarly, the possibility that an agreement would prevent the deployment of European troops in Ukraine as a guarantee force frustrated the Franco-British ambitions to create a “Coalition of the Willing.” And even more serious, the draft introduced a “Russia-NATO dialogue mediated by the United States,” a scheme that reinterpreted the history of the Alliance and positioned Washington not as a committed member, but as an external referee. The levers. In other words, the protection of the European order could no longer be taken for granted. With the United States showing signs of withdrawal and inclination to negotiate bilaterally with Moscow, Europe discovered that its room for maneuver it narrowedand that his levers (sanctions, frozen Russian funds, G7 membership, single market access rules) were even more valuable than he believed, and that he now had to use them to secure an essential seat at the table. Economic control. The leaked texts they pointed to concessions that would have emptied Europe’s most powerful tools: the ability to sanction and condition Russia’s re-entry into the global economy. The idea of ​​​​creating investment funds with the 210 billion euros of the Russian Central Bank frozen in the EU, so that both Washington and Moscow could benefit, caused outrage in Brussels. For the EU, these assets are not just a sanction: they are the heart of the future repair architecture and the key to financing Ukraine in the years in which the United States withdraws. Similarly, the proposal to reinstate Russia into the G8 would be equivalent to a political amnesty for Putin, blowing up years of diplomatic isolation and contradicting the entire European effort to penalize his aggression. Therefore, while the draft negotiated in Geneva was trimmed and softened, Europe reaffirmed that no peace can return to Russia the economic and strategic benefits it lost after invading Ukraine. Without sustained economic pressure, any truce would be temporary, and with it, the EU retains the only element that can still force Moscow to negotiate seriously. A race against time. The biggest change that this episode caused is the acceptance, in all European capitals, that Europe must prepare for a scenario in which the United States already not be your guarantor automatic. Doubts about American commitment have opened a cycle of accelerated reflection about air defenseindustrial reconstitution and autonomous military deployment. From France and Germany to Poland, the question is no longer whether Europe should take on more responsibilities, but whether it can. fast enough. The war in Ukraine has shown that ground defense is essential, but also that European security it is played in the air: drones, missiles, FPV swarms, electronic warfare. Russian drone raids in Poland and Romaniawhich a few years ago would have been unthinkable, have become the most visible sign that the line between the war in Ukraine and the security of European territory has been blurred. All of this has triggered a profound rethinking of how shield the European skyhow to integrate heterogeneous systems and how to develop cheap, scalable and quick-to-deploy defenses. The ally that no one expected: Xbox controllers. Thus, in the midst of this urgent race to strengthen their defenses, Europe and NATO have found the most unexpected allies: lthe xbox controllers. Systems like Merops (a drone interceptor used in Ukraine and already adopted by Poland and Romania) are controlled with controls identical to those that anyone buys in a store for 30 dollars. Far from being an anecdote, this solution represents the search for simplicityspeed and familiarity: soldiers trained in video games can operate these platforms in a matter of days, and become effective pilots in two weeks, something unthinkable with traditional military systems. The form of control, key. The intuitive ergonomics, commercial availability and robustness of the controllers have made these devices an unexpected standard of the new European battlefield. In fact, a soldier who pilots the interceptors told Insider that the Xbox controller is the ideal option. “It’s compact and easy to pack and store, and the Xbox controllers are very durable,” explained during a Merops demonstration in southeastern Poland last week. What was once a leisure accessory has become a … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.